To allow Albertine to go by herself into a big shop crowded with people perpetually brushing against one another, provided with so many exits that a woman can always say that when she came out she could not find her carriage which was waiting farther along the streets, was something that I was quite determined never to consent to, but the thought of it made me extremely unhappy. And yet it did not occur to me that I ought long ago to have ceased to see Albertine, for she had entered, for me, upon that lamentable period in which a person, scattered in space and time, is no longer a woman but a series of events on which we can throw no light, a series of insoluble problems, a sea, which, like Xerxes, we scourge with rods in an absurd attempt to punish it for what it has engulfed. Once this period has begun, we are perforce vanquished. Happy are they who understand this in time not to prolong unduly a futile, exhausting struggle, hemmed in on every side by the limits of the imagination, a struggle in which jealousy plays so sorry a part that the same man who, once upon a time, if the eyes of the woman who was always by his side rested for an instant upon another man, imagined an intrigued and suffered endless torments, now resigns himself to allow her to go out by herself, sometimes with the man whom he knows to be her lover, preferring to the unknowable this torture which at least he knows! It is a question of the rhythm to be adopted, which afterwards one follows from force of habit. Neurotics who could never stay away from a dinner-party will eventually take rest cures which never seem to them to last long enough; women who recently were still of easy virtue live in penitence. Jealous lovers who, to keep an eye on the woman they loved, cut short their hours of sleep, deprived themselves of rest, now feeling that her desires, the world so vast and secret, and time are too much for them, allow her to go out without them, then to travel, and finally separate from her. Jealousy thus perishes for want of nourishment and has survived so long only by clamouring incessantly for fresh food. I was still a long way from this state.
Marcel Proust, The Captive, 99-100
"And yet it did not occur to me that I ought long ago to have ceased to see Albertine, for she had entered, for me, upon that lamentable period in which a person, scattered in space and time, is no longer a woman but a series of events on which we can throw no light, a series of insoluble problems, a sea, which, like Xerxes, we scourge with rods in an absurd attempt to punish it for what it has engulfed" First off, as is well documented, I'm a sucker for any reference to the ancient world or to literature, so Proust had me at his comment about Xerxes. In his Histories Herodotus recounts the story of the Persian King Xerxes crossing the Hellespont during his invasion of Greece and growing angry at storms slowing the process, so he has the water lashed to teach it a lesson. As Herodotus tells us: "You bitter water! Your master punishes you because you have wronged him, though you received no wrong from him. Yet King Xerxes will cross you, whether you will it or no." It is a very famous event (if it happened; Herodotus is known as both the Father of History and the Father of Lies) and it has come down to us as a metaphor for vanity or hubris or folly, or simply assuming that you're in control of something beyond your control. In this sense it makes perfect sense that Proust would use the story as a metaphor for jealous lovers who think they can control the uncontrollable women in their lives, although he doesn't make the connection that the reader inevitably does and associate him with Xerxes.
It seems to me that the problem here is that they have reached the point, as he shares, where Albertine is "no longer a woman but a series of events . ." She doesn't exist as a free woman, but rather as the composite of all the things that she has done, and, in this case particularly, all the lies that she has told. This line really hit home with me because I'm certainly guilty of this, which may be the historian in me wanting to make the past logical if not accountable. While I don't hold grudges, I also don't forget. I've been in a couple of relationships recently where the women made very big promises, and then didn't follow through, and I think I reached the point where I, like Marcel, lost sight of the women as women and rather as "a series of events," in this case the walking manifestation of a broken promise. And then I, this time like Xerxes, lashed the sea instead of doing something more constructive, such as going back to building that bridge across the Hellespont. As the old Persian saying goes (we seem to be focused on Persia today), "Go ahead and pray, but in the meantime keep paddling toward the shore."
Initially I thought it was more than a little ironic that Proust describes jealous lovers who have clearly lost control in their long-running emotional battles with their lovers: "Jealous lovers who, to keep an eye on the woman they loved, cut short their hours of sleep, deprived themselves of rest, now feeling that her desires, the world so vast and secret, and time are too much for them, allow her to go out without them, then to travel, and finally separate from her. Jealousy thus perishes for want of nourishment and has survived so long only by clamouring incessantly for fresh food. I was still a long way from this state." He hardly seemed to be a long way from that state, but then another re-read of the passage led me to realize that he hadn't given up on his mad desire to control Albertine; he was just as jealous and possessive as ever, but had not surrendered to her, and that he would have meant allowed her more freedom. Going back to Xerxes, how much of Marcel's refusal to "surrender" more freedom to Albertine is pure vanity? As he has stated repeatedly, his desire for her is based on the fear of losing her and seemingly nothing more, which means this is a love based purely on weakness (which, I suppose you could argue, all of our love affairs are). As he Proust tells us when explaining what happens when men give their mistresses the freedom to go out alone and then travel separately: "Once this period has begun, we are perforce vanquished." The choice of the word "vanquished" is key here.
Oh, and this reminds me that I might have to revisit my idea of My Year With Herodotus.
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